hunt down the last 34 Chiricahua was an exer
cise in futility.
By the end of August 1886 the fugitives were
desperate to see their families and relatives
again. They sent two women into a Mexican
town to test the possibility of surrender. Soon
thereafter, a courageous lieutenant named
Charles Gatewood went with two Apache
scouts into Geronimo's camp on the Bavispe
River. Gatewood played his trump card, tell
ing Geronimo that his people had already been
sent by train to Florida. The news stunned the
fugitives.
On September 4, 1886, Geronimo met Miles
in Skeleton Canyon, in the Peloncillos just
west of the Arizona-New Mexico line. "This is
the fourth time I have surrendered," the war
rior said. "And I think it is the last time,"
replied the general.
ERONIMO SURRENDERED in the belief that
he was to be reunited within five days
with his family, that his "sins" would
be forgiven, and that his people would
eventually be settled on a reservation in Ari
zona. But Miles had lied. Few of them would
ever see their homeland again.
For their intransigent resistance the Chiri
cahua were punished as no other U. S. Indians
had been. All of them, even women and chil
dren, ultimately served nearly 30 years as pris
oners of war, first in Florida and Alabama,
then at Fort Sill in Oklahoma. In 1913 space
was made for the Chiricahua at the Mescalero
Reservation in south-central New Mexico.
About two-thirds of the survivors moved to
the Mescalero site, while the others stayed
near Fort Sill. In those two locations their
descendants live today.
Last spring I spent a day on the Mescalero
Reservation with Ouida Miller, Geronimo's
granddaughter. A warm and sympathetic
woman of 66, she has guarded her knowledge
of the great warrior all her life. "We still get
letters of hatred from people in Arizona," she
says. "They say that their great-grandfather
was killed by Geronimo."
In 1905 Geronimo pleaded with President
Theodore Roosevelt to send his people back to
Arizona. "It is my land," Geronimo wrote,
"my home, my father's land, to which I now
ask to be allowed to return. I want to spend my
last days there, and be buried among those
mountains. If this could be I might die in
peace, feeling that my people, placed in their
native homes, would increase in numbers,
rather than diminish as at present, and that
our name would not become extinct."
President Roosevelt turned down the
appeal on the grounds that in Arizona antago
nism against the Apache still ran too high.
"That is all I can say, Geronimo," he replied,
"except that I am sorry, and have no feeling
against you."
Geronimo's fear that his people might
become extinct was no rhetorical flourish. In
their prime the Chiricahua had numbered no
more than 1,200. By the time they were freed,
they had dwindled to 265. Today, because of
dispersal over the subsequent decades and
intermarriage with other bands, it is impossi
ble to number the Chiricahua.
Last fall I visited the final surrender site in
Skeleton Canyon. It lies in a tranquil clearing
at the junction of two creeks. Tall sycamores
shade the ground where Miles laid down sym
bolic stones, moving them about to illustrate
his promises about the Apache future.
Only three or four old ranches lie along the
15-mile length of Skeleton Canyon. From the
surrender site I hiked a long way upstream,
rounding one idyllic bend after another. I saw
no one else all day. I wondered, not for the first
time, why it had proved impossible to find a
place in all this empty magnificence for fewer
than a thousand Apache -the population
of such tiny Arizona towns as Duncan or
Morenci.
According to those closest to him, Geronimo
for the rest of his life bitterly regretted having
surrendered to Miles. He wished instead that
he had stayed in the Sierra Madre with his
warriors, fighting it out to the last man.
On a winter night in 1909, riding home from
the town of Lawton, Oklahoma, Geronimo
fell off his horse and lay in a ditch till morning.
About 85 years old, he succumbed to pneumo
nia four days later. On his deathbed Geronimo
spoke the names of his warriors who had
stayed loyal to the end.
The Apache cemetery at Fort Sill, on a
serene bench of land above a branch of Cache
Creek, contains some 300 graves. At the center
lies Geronimo's: a collection of brown granite
stones cemented into a small pyramid, topped
by a carved stone eagle, whose vandalized
head has been replaced by a crude replica in
concrete. From Geronimo's grave, identical
white headstones range in precise rows and
columns. Each stone has a number code on the
National Geographic, October 1992